Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) (18 page)

The young woman nodded. “What do they call it when you begin to fall in love with your kidnapper? Stockholm syndrome?” Her English was almost too exquisite, her accent well traveled, if not foreign.

“Would you like a glass of champagne?” Ty asked.

“Why ever not?”

“I'm Ty Hunter.”

“I know.”

“And—”

“Who am I? Maria-Antonia,” she said. “Maria-Antonia Salazar.”

“Well, Maria-Antonia Salazar, here's a health unto you,” Ty said, raising his glass.

“That sounds like a line.”

“You're correct. It's from my last film.”

“Did you get the girl in that one?”

“Naturally. That's why they pay me the big bucks.”

“So I take it you're a man who plays the odds.”

“What else can a fellow do when he doesn't have a script to go by?”

“Wing it, I suppose.”

“Very dangerous,” Ty said.

“Let's dance,” Maria-Antonia said.

“Only if I lead,” Ty told her.

“Why do you say that? It suggests you might be a disappointing lover.”

“My reviews suggest the opposite.”

“But you're too much of a gent to cite them?”

“You'd think less of me if I did.”

“Who's to say?” Maria-Antonia replied. “It's the kind of thing I decide for myself.”

“You're very confident.”

“I was born that way.”

“Which is fortunate,” Ty said.

“Usually,” Maria-Antonia agreed.

“I still want to lead.”

“Because it's been such a long time since you've done anything else?”

“Partly that,” Ty said, “but there are also other reasons.”

“If you insist,” she said. “I mean, I'm not your shrink.”

“I don't have a shrink.”

“Everyone should.”

“I disagree.”

“You disagree a lot.”

“Only when you force the question,” Ty said. “Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to kiss you.”

“Then please do. I'd like you to.”

“You're not afraid you'll become tabloid fodder?”

“I'm not afraid of much.”

Before their dance they finished their champagne in silence, then made their way to the larger dome. Beneath the summer sky, they moved arm in arm across the soft, sweet-smelling lawn, their fixation with each other captured by the digital cameras of other partygoers as well as the benefit's official photographer. As they approached the dome, they were drawn to the interplay of light and shadows upon the higher reaches of its convex surface. Inside, the music was throbbing and fast, and they headed toward the dance floor, which was tiled in Brazilian ebony. Between its squares, lights twinkled in random sequence, and they could feel its vibrations through the soles of their shoes. It was above them, however, that the mood of a moment was set, then altered and altered again. For the inside of the dome was a concave movie screen of 360 degrees. No sooner did they step onto the floor than they were riding twenty-foot waves, ascending, then balancing themselves at the crest of each, then high in the saddles of camels, galloping toward sunset, then skiing pristine glaciers by moonlight and descending vertiginous waterfalls with reckless glee. When the tempo finally let up, Ty drew Maria-Antonia closer to him and kissed her again, more passionately than before.

“Do you sail?” Maria-Antonia asked softly, slowly opening her eyes once he'd stepped back.

“I can handle myself on a boat,” Ty replied.

“We leave tomorrow.”

“We do?”

“From Stansted Airport,” Maria-Antonia said. “My boat is already on its way from Sardinia. It will be in Marbella by the time we get there. You can sail for as long as you like.”

“It's an enticing invitation.”

“Then accept it.”

“I'll have to check a few things.”

“Naturally. Where are you staying?”

“Claridge's.”

“Alone?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“I love Claridge's, but I don't go to hotels with men I've just met,” Maria-Antonia said. “Even movie stars.”

“But you do ask them to go off sailing in strange seas on a moment's notice?”

“No woman can follow and lead at the same time.”

“I know. We've been through that. Ten minutes ago I would never have expected to say this, but I want to make love to you.”

Maria-Antonia smiled. “I know you do,” she said.

In his suite Ty said, “Why is it always the same way? Hard as you try, you can never catch fate. Then, just when you give up trying, it catches you.”

“The gods are amusing themselves,” Oliver replied. “It's the way of the world.”

“What am I doing talking to you, sipping single-malt scotch in a five-thousand-dollar-a-night hotel suite at this hour when I should be ravishing the very delicious Maria-Antonia Salazar? If I'm really Ty Hunter, there's something wrong with this picture.”

“Not every woman is Zara Chapin, available upon demand without demanding anything in return.”

“Thank you for the valuable nursery lesson,” Ty said, “but I'm afraid I've been learning it by experience lately—tonight with Maria-Antonia and last week when Isabella Cavill opened the door then, half an hour later, slammed it in my face.”

“Shame about that,” Oliver said.

“What the hell, she's young and beautiful and rich as Croesus and likes to play games. How smart she is remains to be seen. I'll tell you one thing, though. I don't care how clean Philip Frost is in George Kenneth's eyes or anyone else's. I don't trust him.”

“Why would you? You're jealous.”

“It's more than that. I heard some whores talking about him on a pontoon at the Hôtel du Cap. He makes them grovel for their money.”

“If that's true, Isabella will see it eventually.”

“I don't know. Women don't always.”

“She's the one on whom you should be concentrating.”

“Why do you say that? Maria-Antonia hasn't shut any door yet. Well, except for tonight,” Ty said.

Oliver poured two more fingers of Laphroaig into both their glasses, sipped his slowly, then hesitated. “She
will
shut it,” he said.

“You don't know that,” Ty replied, before the implications of Oliver's remark had fully registered.

Oliver remained silent but kept his eyes on Ty.

“Or
do
you, you son of a bitch?” Ty pressed.

“She's ours,” Oliver said.

“Yours?”

“Ours, yours—in this case there's no difference. We're a unit.”

“Well, she's the damnedest agent I've ever seen, as well as the most convincing liar. Why wasn't I told?”

“That's my fault. I knew you'd go for her. I thought it would be more credible and, believe it or not, easier on you if you didn't know you were performing.”

“Easier on me?”

“I thought you'd want to get your rocks off, not fall in love,” Oliver said sharply.

“I'm not in love.”

“Apologies in that case.”

“So I'm flying another thousand miles in order to go sailing with a prick teaser I have no chance of screwing, all for England and St. George?”

“Not
only
for England.”

“You know what I mean, you duplicitous little shit.”

“And
you
know what
I
mean.”

“Right now I wish I didn't. Right now there's a big part of me that would like to wring Maria-Antonia's ever-so-elegant neck.”

“That's exactly how I hoped you'd feel. Hold on to those feelings, Ty. You're going to need them soon enough.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Photographs of Ty and
Maria-Antonia Salazar appeared in three newspapers the following morning. The most intriguing picture, of the couple embracing on the dance floor, teased readers from page one of the
Daily
Mail
. Inside, another picture showed them holding hands as they maneuvered their way across the lamplit garden at Winfield House. The
Daily Telegraph
featured portraits of them on page three and asked,
IS TY HUNTER THE SORCERER WHO HAS AWAKENED A FAMOUSLY RECLUSIVE HEIRESS FROM HER LONG SPELL?
The
Times
cautioned,
FANS FEAR TY HUNTER HAS GIVEN HIS HEART—AGAIN
. Below the headline was a photograph in which his adoring expression and her compelling profile said more than any exposé could.

Oliver had collected the newspapers from the cloth bag hung on the outside door of Ty's suite and handed them to Ty, without speaking, when he arrived before breakfast.

“I volunteered for service, not humiliation,” Ty remonstrated. “Don't play with me like that again.”

“I haven't any plan to.”

“Keep it that way.”

“We're due at Stansted at eleven.”

“Two questions: First, is Maria-Antonia
Salazar her real name?”

“No, it's a legend.”

“Is she married?”

“Yes and no.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“They're having difficulties.”

“People in her line of work often do.”

“It's his line of work as well.”

“‘Double the pleasure, double the fun,'” Ty said, “an old saying of my mother's.”

“Not invariably the case,” Oliver replied.

“No.”

After they had phoned in their order to room service, Oliver took a deep breath. “I have the next pages of the script,” he announced. “Is this the time, or would you prefer to wait?”

“I didn't know there
was
a script.”

“It's partial, of course. Once you've made contact with last week's love, you'll be flying on your own. For the meantime you can't take your mind off Maria-Antonia. That's what the notes say.”

“Which service devised this soap opera?”

“It's a collaborative effort, really.”

“That's what it sounds like. So I'm besotted?”

“You're keen. It's unbecoming for a star to be besotted.”

“When does that change?”

“It doesn't. It goes the other way. The lady will give you the cue.”

“You're not going to tell me her real name.”

“For your own safety. You might slip and use it.”

“I've never flubbed a line on set in my life. It can be ten grand a take.”

“The stakes here are much higher.”

“Yeah, well,” Ty said.

“Maybe someday,” Oliver told him. “Right now, remember, you don't know anything about her except that she races your motor. What you hear, you store but immediately discount, because in your line of work you've heard a lot about people that didn't prove true. The more rumors that surface about her, and particularly her fortune, the harder they'll be for anyone to pin down. You get the idea.”

“All too clearly,” Ty said.

The yacht chartered was a Swan 100 with a racing-green hull, teak decks and a semi-raised saloon. It had been organized in London and paid for by a wire transfer drawn on a private bank in Bermuda. The Bermuda account, which was overseen by a firm of investment counselors secretly connected to the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States, had over the years borne any number of names but according to the most recently adjusted records had belonged to Maria-Antonia Salazar since shortly after the untimely death of her entirely imaginary first husband, a Latin American merchant banker and onetime sugar broker, six years previously.

On the flight out, Maria, ebullient and entranced, kept up her act from the evening before. Ty understood that this was for the benefit of anyone who might be observing them, especially the flight crew, who, like the crew attached to the yacht itself, were young and no doubt lacking in means and could be presumed to be willing to compromise the privacy of their clients in return for sufficient compensation from the press. When she squeezed Ty's hand, he squeezed back a little too strongly. He had faked romance before on-screen but had never enjoyed it. Even less did he enjoy feigning it now, knowing there was no romance where he had so recently felt its spark.

Onboard the yacht, which had been christened
Vendavel
after a regional wind, they took the forward cabin. They sailed until just before sunset, then dropped anchor in a cove beyond the harbor, where they dined as the sun disappeared behind a distant ridge and the western sky turned the color of burnt orange. Across a folding table on the aft deck, they locked eyes, saying little, communicating by tiny yet important alterations of expression. Quickly, Ty put himself into character, playing to Maria-Antonia's moods and lines but now and then upping her ante and taking control.

They went to bed early, and when Maria-Antonia abruptly drifted off, Ty was suddenly glad for a long break between scenes and the low waves that gently rocked
Vendavel.

Dawn came with surprising suddenness. No sooner had the horizon fallen away to the east than sunlight flooded their cabin. After her shower Maria-Antonia appeared tense. Not knowing what had catalyzed the sudden deterioration of her mood, Ty nonetheless decided to play to it. He would appear as decent as she was spoiled, as placating as she was implacable.

By the time they finally emerged on deck,
Vendavel
was already under way. The Norwegian first mate, a compelling young Viking not yet twenty, held the tiller while his Aussie captain examined waypoints for the day's journey. The captain's girlfriend of the season was a quiet Scottish girl, who, having finished a Cordon Bleu course in Paris, served as cook. The scents of frying bacon and steaming coffee drifted upward from the galley.

“Good morning, ma'am,” offered the enthusiastic first mate.

Maria-Antonia ignored him initially, then, thinking better of her decision, said, “For some, possibly.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he replied, although he looked away rapidly to hide his contempt.

In a voice long used to having even its most impulsive whims gratified, Maria-Antonia said, “Captain, before you have us all off on a long tack to nowhere, I would like to have a stretch.”

“The sea is lovely,” the captain told her, “warm at the surface and clear as far down as the eye can see. I was in myself less than thirty minutes ago. Very refreshing!”

“On
land,
” Maria-Antonia said.

“Well, that's another matter, then, isn't it?” the captain said, at which his mate sighed, then busied himself coiling lines.

“Moreover, we've barely set foot in Puerto Banús, certainly not in daylight. It would be a pity not to give Mr. Hunter a proper picture of it. Surely you agree.”

The captain gave her a full-on but disdainful smile. “It's my job to agree.”

“So it is, I suppose,” Maria-Antonia said.

A moment later, when Ty appeared, he was grinning. “Something smells good,” he declared.

“You bet your life it does,” the captain replied.

Ty seated himself on the boat's port side, across the table from Maria-Antonia, to whom he offered an exaggerated, mocking, evanescent smile. He wondered how Greg or any of his other directors would have judged the performance he and Maria-Antonia were putting on. Would they have seen through it? He doubted it. Improvisation was dangerous, but when it went right, it verged closer than any script to the truth. He had to take his hat off to his co-conspirator, even as he knew he was being played by her. “What's your pleasure, madam?” he asked, almost insolently and with a wink to the captain.

“We're going ashore,” Maria-Antonia replied matter-of-factly.

“As I'd surmised,” Ty said.

“When we changed course?”

“It was a sign, coming about that abruptly.”

“You don't mind?”

“What choice do I have?”

“If you have an opinion, voice it.”

“My opinion is that going ashore in a fantastic boat like this one seems preferable to walking a gangplank.”

“You have a way of putting things,” Maria-Antonia told him.

“Thank you.”

“That wasn't meant as a compliment.”

“So it was more of a warning?”

“Have it your way.”

“What's really a pity,” Ty said, “is that we can't
both
do that.”

The early light was unkind to Puerto Banús, which stretched out before them like an abandoned stage. The specialty shops that lined the
muelle
were still shuttered, and only a few stray figures wandered in the distance. It was just too deluxe, Ty thought, as he followed Maria-Antonia along a harborside where haute couture, haute bling and haute handbags were on display in the windows of outposts of just about every major international designer.

“I know it's over the top, but I
love
it,” Maria-Antonia said without slowing the rapid pace she'd set.

“Good for you,” Ty replied.

“You don't?”

“I'm a Jams and frayed-chinos kind of guy.”

“Now you tell me.”

“When I come into a new port, the first thing I look for is the chandlery; after that, maybe, a dive that offers false courage to sailors.”

“In which case your luck's run out,” Maria-Antonia said. “Even so, it might interest you to know that everything you see is not only named after but was conceived
and
built by Franco's favorite developer.”

“How surprising!”

“Laugh if you will, but there are berths for almost a thousand boats,” she continued. “That one over there, moored by the old tower, belongs to the king of Saudi Arabia.”

“I suppose if I were King of Saudi Arabia, I'd want a boat just like that.”

“Perhaps you'd prefer the desert.”

“I wouldn't.”

“What you fail to understand is that understatement never flourishes for very long where overstatement is possible.”

Ty laughed. “I had no idea you were so philosophical.”

“Why would you?”

“Beats me,” Ty said. “What's that?”

They had arrived at the center of the harbor, and ahead stood an enormous, at first perplexing statue.

“A surrealist rhinoceros by Salvador Dalí,” Maria-Antonia explained. “It weighs three tons, or so I'm told.”

“Of course it is. How foolish of me!”

Two streets back from the harbor, on a corner and with tables set out on the pavement, they found the coffeehouse for which Maria-Antonia had been searching. It was crowded with fashionable patrons, abuzz with their morning chatter, and pungent with the aroma of espresso beans being ground and brewed. They ordered two lattes and took two English-language newspapers from the spindle rack on which they were held. They found a table, sipped their coffee and read in silence, Ty the sports page of the
International Herald Tribune,
Maria-Antonia the
Daily Mail.
As the sun rose, Ty opened the striped umbrella in the center of their table. Maria-Antonia suddenly laughed.

“What's funny?” Ty asked.

“I doubt you'd understand.”

“Try me,” he suggested.

“No,” she said. “We don't have the same sense of humor, you and I. If nothing else,
that's
become clear enough by now.”

“
Do
you
have a sense of humor?” Ty snapped.

“There! You see what I mean.”

“I didn't come out here to be needled and provoked.”

“Why
did
you come?” Maria-Antonia demanded.

“It's an excellent question,” Ty said. “I must have lost my head.”

“Apparently,” she agreed. “Boys will be toys, of course, but you actors, you're a breed all your own. You think you're so special because the spotlight falls on you and the footlights brighten your makeup, but really you're all the same! And what sort of person wants to spend his life becoming other people, and never for too long, rather than the one he is?”

“It's a job,” Ty said, “like any other.”

“Bullshit! You don't believe that for a minute.”

They had begun to draw the attention of those surrounding them, particularly of a young couple who had seemed otherwise engaged only in sending and receiving text messages.

“What I don't believe is that there is any role I or anyone else could play that could ever satisfy such a professionally dissatisfied person as you.”

Maria-Antonia hesitated. “You're over your head, Ty,” she told him, as if in confidence yet loud enough to be overheard. “You're in danger of drowning. Why not head back to shore before it's too late?”

Ty rolled his fingers on the edge of the table. “You're a beautiful woman,” he told her, making no effort to mask the sarcasm in his voice.

“Thank you. You're a beautiful man.”

“But that's all?”

“I'm afraid it is.”

“You're wrong.”

“I'm not. Shall I put it to you bluntly? What you are and what you have are simply not enough.”

Ty shivered, pretending to be simultaneously stung and released from inhibition by her sharp words. “Shall I tell you what
you
are?” he pressed, angrily.

“Besides beautiful,” Maria-Antonia snickered.

“Yes. You're spoiled. You're a bitch. And, even worse, you're a lousy lay. Trust me,” he added. “I'm an expert in these things.”

It was then that Maria-Antonia's right hand, in which she held a tumbler of water, drifted gradually back, then sprung all at once forward, splashing Ty's hair and face. Water ran down the open collar of his polo shirt in icy dribbles. She kicked back her chair and stood abruptly. “The captain will leave your things on the dock,” she said coolly. “I wouldn't waste too much time collecting them.”